It had been a month now. An entire month of 60- to 70-hour work weeks, coming in on weekends, and I knew that until this project was finished, it would continue like this. Being fairly new in my career I felt I had to put in the hours to do my part, and so, after another long work day, my feet aching, I drove up to our apartment in the dusk, the following phrase ringing in my mind:

“By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread, all the days of thy life.”

According to Genesis, these are the words God says to Adam and Eve, and to us as their collective children as He drives them out of the blissful Garden of Eden.

Even in a digital age, when automated machinery does a lion’s share of the ‘sweating,’ here we still are working long work hours at jobs that we don’t necessarily see as our lives (why else would we call it ‘work/life’ balance?). But how do we truly find a balance between the necessity of work and the necessity of giving to our family and friends? How do we remain diligent at work when our nine-to-five job is an odd formula that doesn’t always fit the needs of home? Continue reading →